[CHILDREN’S LITERATURE]. PIPER, Watty (1888-1957). The Little Engine that Could. New York: Platt & Munk, [1930?].
8vo. Numerous illustrations, some in color by Lois Lenski. Original red cloth, pictorial label on front cover; original dust jacket (some light chipping to extremities, light surface soiling).
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE with the absence of the “Trademark” below the title on both the cover and jacket, 9 titles listed in the “Never Grow Old Series”. In an early issue jacket with the advertisement on rear panel listing 6 titles at $1.25 each instead of 4 titles at $1.00 each but with heading “Beautiful Books for Children” and within 2 rules, with printing on both flaps (see Zielinski, Children’s Picturebook Collecting; this variant not described). An American children’s classic, which popularized the phrase “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…” Although “Watty Piper,” a penname created by the Platt and Munk Company, was credited with the retelling of this story, the original version, The Pony Engine, is attributed to Mabel C. Bragg on the title-page of this edition. Ms. Bragg, however, never claimed to have penned the story. It was, in fact, authored by Mary Jacobs, who wrote The Pony Engine in 1910. The earliest known published version of the tale (although it is markedly shorter), was published in Wellspring for Young People, a children’s Sunday school publication in 1906 with no author listed.